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this is what bus planners have always done with the best available data, in setting routes.

And therein lies the rub. Well that at and just general bureaucratic inertia. In our city, route changes tend not to keep up with road construction, destination changes, etc. We have major roads that are full of cars during rush hour, but hardly any buses and empty buses touring residential areas.

An example of an empty major road is Kenaston Blvd & Bishop Grandin Blvd (Note: Zoom in on the map - there's lots of route "close by"). Not a single bus route travels that stretch and yet this road is one of our "inner perimeters" where 42,000 vehicles drive it every day (PDF warning).

Another example is our 98 and 82. These are "feeder" routes. They collect residents and bring them to major routes where they can go downtown. However, if you live on one side of the river and wish to go to a business or school on the other side of the river, you need to take BOTH buses which only run every 1/2 hour. It would seem to me that the logical thing to do would be to combine them into a single loop. That way you aren't stuck in -30C weather waiting 29 minutes for your transfer because the first bus was running late.

Here in Winnipeg Canada they have the Citizen Online Reporting System http://winnipeg.ca/police/coplogic/default_cats.stm. Not all crimes can be reported but probably most of the common ones...

OSHA must be thrilled

Getting OSHA / union / bubblewrap parents involved means that those who are capable of helping are not allowed to because of the risk that some idiot gets hurt or damages something.

They have their place and time when things are normal to try and minimize the impact of a disaster, but once that disaster is in full swing, they need to sit down, shut up and let people self-mobilize to get the job done.

In the spring of '97 guys were working heavy equipment for days straight, often by the light of military flares, to build a dike that saved Winnipeg from one of the biggest spring floods in our history (often "stealing" clay/dirt from nearby farms to get the dike to the heights needed, dragging and dumping scrap cars, buses, anything they could find to shore up the water front side from erosion, etc.). Ignoring the union rules, safety rules, land procurement rules, etc. they got it done in time.

After the flood waters receded, then all the compensating processes kicked in to address the shortcomings.

My ex gf's dad built a garage in the middle of winter one year, and in order for the concrete to set properly, he had to run two big electric heaters day and night to keep it warm. The police came with a warrant to search the property for a grow op (alerted by the electricity company for abnormally high power usage), but found a new garage instead. They were a bit embarrassed, but turned their attention towards the fact that he now had 2 garages and too much of his property covered by outbuildings. He said he would knock down the old garage when the new one was all finished, but he lied, it's still there.

As for grow ops, people get busted here all the time, at least weekly, often more frequently. They've moved into affluent neighbourhoods too, and now the law says home sellers have to disclose whether or not a home was used for a grow op (only within the past year though IIRC), because of all the mold and other problems that come from grow ops. The address list is also published on the police website.

Paying with a cell phone? Hell, we can pay by text here... in Winnipeg of all places.

Many US, Canadian and UK cities are served by Verrus for paying parking in certain parking lots (even on street in some places, but not here) with a cell phone by dialling a number and having an account with them, easily setup online. Here in Winnipeg they also offer pay by text. The only other place they offer that is in the UK. I pay by phone Mon-Fri for parking downtown, and it's super convenient. Saves hauling around $5 in change and having to stop at the ticket machine on the way into the lot.

Within the last couple years, the City of Winnipeg instituted a set of brand new parking machines, eliminating most if not all old on-pole parking meters. You can pay by credit card, coins, and as of at least May, by phone. You can even pay your fine online.

What we DON'T have is the wireless signs that show number of spots free. In San Francisco, with a metro population of 7 some million, compared to Winnipeg's paltry 694,000, and a population density more than 4.5 times higher than Winnipeg, finding a space is likely a lot harder. We usually just need to drive around the block to find some, never mind the fact that the number of surface parking lots here is very high.

"Apparently they are relying on the fact of the lack of (not the 'inability to create') viruses for the Mac OS as their safe guard against this problem..."

This was likely told to them by the sales rep. I worked at a school division here which will remain nameless, and this was widely believed to be true. I spent hours upon hours attempting to convince our admin of this, but alas I was just a junior.

Especially the roads.

Here in Winnipeg the city budgets 1.1 Million per year just to patch potholes caused by freeze/thaw in the concrete road surface*. That is just for patching, not replacing or doing proper repairs to the road.

* The temperature is only one contributing factor, the other is the soil conditions... There's nothing "solid" under the roads. It's all a silt-clay material under the surface. To build a road they dig down as much as 12 feet, and fill it with crushed rock, in thin compacted layers. Even with that, the roads still shift and crack within a couple of years.